xmas98

Dear friends,God’s peace to you! Whenever I get a family’s Christmas form letter, I skim it quickly to see if anything momentous has happened, and then put it away to be read later after the Christmas rush. So I thought I’d make it easy for those of you who do the same. Just read the headlines, and put this away for the day when you are suddenly and inexplicably stricken with curiosity about Alanna and Art.

Alanna has finished her first year as assistant director at L’Arche Victoria, one of the Jean Vanier homes for the mentally handicapped. She works four days a week. I chide her for putting in many unpaid hours of work in excess of that. “You’re a workaholic!” I thunder. “Yes,” she says with a contrite face, and keeps on doing it. Alanna has long since learned that the best way to disarm a man is to agree with him.

It has been a challenging year of growth for her. As the year went by she got a better idea of her role in the organization. From what she tells me, I know she has been successful in a number of ways. But try and get her to feel good about her accomplishments! I call it a nasty case of perfectionism.

I started working as a chaplain for the Capital Health Region in May (yes, I am a civil serpent!). I took the place of someone who had taken disability leave. The job will last for sure for another two years, and may become permanent after that (I will have to reapply for the job in two years).

I am responsible for providing pastoral care at six different extended care hospital sites in the greater Victoria area. In B.C. health parlance, extended care facilities look after old people who require the maximum amount of nursing care. Generally they will live in one of these places until they die. As B.C. implements the policy of keeping people in their own homes as long as possible (by providing home care) until they enter an extended care facility, we find that people coming into care are in worse shape than before and more than a few die within a year. I hold three or four memorial services every month. But most of my time is devoted to recruiting, training and supervising volunteer worship leaders and pastoral visitors. One person cannot provide pastoral care to nearly seven hundred residents in six different sites. Without volunteers many residents would receive no pastoral care whatsoever.

My chaplaincy position is nondenominational. I don’t present myself as a priest, and I go by the title of mister, although I don’t correct people who call me reverend. As I do not represent the Roman Catholic Church, I did not have to get the approval of the Catholic bishop as a condition of employment. That is fortunate, since, given my circumstances as a married priest, I would not have received such approval.

After nine years of intermittent employment, Alanna and I don’t quite know how to take having jobs that will not end in a year or two. We miss not working together as a team, and hope some day to do so again.

We have been spared any significant illness. We feel spiritually healthy too. We continue to attend both the local Catholic and United Churches. I think we’re living proof that church is good for you.

If you want more details, you shall have to write or email us (amenu@islandnet.com). Oliver the cat and Joshua the budgie join us in wishing you a blessed Christmas and happy New Year!

Art and Alanna